Unlike science and art, science and religion have been at war. The very title of Andrew Dickson White's classic of 1910, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, epitomizes the dimensions of such conflict. In a lecture entitled “The Battlefields of Science,” which preceded the publication of his book, White upheld the thesis that

CONFLICTS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Nevertheless, as White's own massive two volumes testify, the conflicts between science and religion have been both continuous and intense, with science scoring a brilliant series of conquests. “In spite of ignorance, folly, and passion,” wrote the historian of science William Dampier, “the scientific method has won field after field since the days of Galileo. From mechanics it passed to physics, from physics to biology, from biology to psychology, where it is slowly adapting itself to unfamiliar ground. There seems no limit to research,” continued Dampier, “for, as has been well and truly said, the more the sphere of knowledge grows, the larger becomes the surface of contact with the unknown.”